Yucucui

Yucucui is the Mixtec place of Monte Albán, which they knew as Yukú Kuììn, "jaguar hill"; the Mexica called it Ocelotépec and the Zapotec Dani Beedxe. The Zapotec founded the city on a levelled mountaintop in the centre of the Valley of Oaxaca around 500 BCE and ruled from it until about 800 CE, when it held some 35,000 people on terraced slopes. By the time of the Postclassic it was no longer a living town, but the valley's Zapotec went on using its plazas for ritual.

As Mixtec power spread into the valley, their lords took over the old city's dead. They reopened Tomb 7, an ancient Zapotec tomb, and filled it with the richest hoard of Mesoamerican gold ever found: gold ornaments in Mixtec style, carved bone and other offerings. The inscriptions on its bones confirm the dynastic alliances that tied the Mixtec kingdoms to Zapotec ones. Political power now lay in Zaachila, Cuilapan and Mitla, and the empty hill beyond them stayed a place of ancestors until the Spanish arrived in 1521.

The later city of Oaxaca City lies here.